ergo harmonica
About us
about us
Arnd
Hoffmann from Wetzlar, Germany
born
in 1965
started playing the harmonica in 1974
plays
semi-professionally since 1989
learned
the toolmaker's trade
but
has been working on construction for the last 15 years because
this kind of job made playing music a lot easier.
In 1997
I met Joe Filisko, Richard Sleigh and Howard Levy at the World
Harmonica Festival in Trossingen, Germany, where the Hohner
factory is located.
I had
never before experienced a gathering of harmonica players as huge
as on that festival and Joe was one of the first cats I bumped
into.
This
inspired me to make harmonicas by myself.
I
accomplished the first playable instrument in the year of 2000.
The
covers are made of 1.5mm copper, the comb of river red gum which
is a eucalyptus and, besides, swells and shrinks too much to be
suitable as a harmonica comb. The reedplates are Hohner MS in the
key of D.
Two fourteen hole SBS harps followed. Steve Baker's fabulous tuning system with the holes 1-3 doubled an octave lower beside the 1st hole of a Richter still itches my ambition to make a 13hole ergo.
I made the aluminium harps with the three sharp edges at the end of 2001.
It took quite a while until I had all the ideas I needed to open up a harmonica production. Well, I'm working on that subject.
You see, this is a One Man Show...
...but you know this One Man Show would never be good unless there were someone with me...
Christiane Scheffler and I have been a couple for more than a dozen years.